


Defying Fate

by PatchworkIdeas



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Gen, Half-God!Kili, Quests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26564185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatchworkIdeas/pseuds/PatchworkIdeas
Summary: Kili is a half-god. Fili is determined not to let that be the death of him.
Relationships: Fíli & Kíli (Tolkien)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	Defying Fate

Fili’s father died when he was young. He didn’t really remember him, maybe a laugh, or the vague memory of a scent, something so fleeting it might as well be his imagination.

He didn’t really miss him. 

And maybe that was cruel, maybe if his father had lived their lives would have been much more quiet and peaceful.

But if he hadn’t died, Kili wouldn’t have been born, wouldn’t have been _Kili_ \- and between a happy life with his mom and dad and his little brother, Fili always knew what he would choose.

-

Fili can almost remember that winter, harsh, early, and deadly.  
He remembers the hunger gnawing at his young bones, the frost sneaking through the too small clothes.  
There hadn’t been enough time to prepare, and worse, only his mother, suddenly alone, to do it. She had tried, tried to hunt, to gather firewood not soaked through by the unusually high snow. Tried to gather everything, anything at all that might be eatable.  
It hadn’t been enough.  
Many died that year.  
They didn’t.

Fili didn’t understand for many years what had happened, where the sudden, delicious stores of food came from, or the warm fabrics that his mother hastened to make into fitting clothing for him. All he knew was that they weren’t hungry anymore, that his mother was smiling, laughing more and more. That a miracle had happened.

It would take nine months for Fili to meet the true miracle, the one who would change his life from the ground up. The one he would never, ever want to miss.  
Fili never met Kili’s father, but he was thankful all the same.

-

There were rumors in the village - there always were - but Dis was generous when she could be, and people knew better than to openly speak against someone so… fortunate.  
They knew it came with a price.

It always did.

-

Fili and Kili grew up warm, well fed, and happy. But most of all - inseparable. There was nothing they didn’t do together, nothing they didn’t share - at least as long as they could, for while Fili grew strong and broad, Kili grew tall and sleek. They didn’t look much alike, but thankfully his little brother had inherited their mother’s black curls, rather than Fili’s unusual, gold spun hair. Strangers might say that Fili, strong, competent, golden Fili, was the one touched by the gods.

They would be wrong.

-

It started innocently enough. Kili had impeccable aim since he was little, but it was only when he first got his hands on a bow that his true talent shone through.

Kili couldn’t miss.

Didn’t matter the distance, the size, or if the very air was fighting against him. Every arrow Kili shot, from the first to the last, hit it’s mark.  
It was great, initially, the village now having plenty of food and furs, and for once knowing exactly where it came from.

It was still useful when the monsters came, lusting for gods blood.

It didn’t stop the villagers from chasing them out after one too many close calls.

Kili was fast, and they trained, day and night, to insure he would become faster still, but the monsters were learning, were coming in bigger and bigger waves - it was only a matter of time until he wouldn’t be fast enough anymore.

-

Fili knew the legends, knew that no child of the gods ever lived a long and happy life. They were cursed by their blessing.  
Fili would break that curse. He had known that would be his part to play from the moment he held Kili and swore to protect him. Fili had always known his brother was so much more.

So it was little surprise for anyone that when Kili packed his bags to leave, go anywhere else but their little, once friendly village, Fili was right behind him.

Kili didn’t get farther than a questioning look, an opened mouth without a sound, before Fili told him where he could shove his thoughts of leaving him behind. 

Their mother had wanted to come too, furious at the plight, but together they convinced her otherwise. This was their journey to take, and it would be one they would return from safe and sound, together. 

They knew the legends, knew that while the gods could not interfere directly into the affairs of their children, they could grant boons, if they were earned.

Kili was a master of the bow, and Fili had trained himself to be a master of the sword, and where one might not be fast enough, the other would be there.

-

Their journey took years, through mountains, through plains, but always on foot. They knew from home that even the best trained animals spooked when faced with a monster, and learned fast that Kili’s arrows might hit underwater, but not with any worthwhile force. 

They stayed ahead of the horde on their heels, ever growing, sometimes through trickery, often by leaving mountains of odd dust behind, the creatures sent back where they came, defeated, but never dead. Not for long.  
There wasn’t supposed to be a happy ending for them, and people saw them and mourned - if they didn’t just ran like their lives depended on it.

And yet, for each doomsayer, they completed another impossible quest.  
For each one that ran, they saved another from certain death.  
Their names were known far and wide, legends of their own in the making.  
And yet, all they wanted was to live in peace.

-

Their mother might have stayed behind, but she helped in her own way, sending letters with any scrap of information she could find. Not all reached them, lost to monster and human alike, but one, the one, made it through. It was a tiny mention, of how Kili’s aunt had escaped from her families watchful eye, never to be seen again. 

Their mother didn’t have a sister. 

-

It took years, but when the boons of gods and the gratitude of men became almost more than they could carry, they finally found what they were looking for.

Who they were looking for.

The goddess who had escaped, who had refused her own fate, and shaped the world by her refusal.  
She wasn’t worshiped, not like the gods that preached responsibility and duty and sacrifice.  
She didn’t need anyone’s worship, just her freedom.

They gave her all they had, all they had become, all they could be, and in return she cut the strings attached to them, leaving them wild and free.  
They walked hand in hand into a future free of fate, a future of their own design.

They journeyed back without haste, their steps light and playful. No heavy weight rested on their shoulders, and no enemy nipped at their heels.  
They traveled over land and sea, unseen and unnoticed by any they met.  
They listened to familiar stories of unnamed heroes, forgotten to time. No one could quite remember what had become of them, but surely it had been a gruesome fate, for that was the price heroes had to pay.

When they stepped back into the house of their childhood, their mother was baking bread, and humming an old tune under her breath. She didn’t turn around. Not until they took her hands, one each, did her eyes widen, and her scream of joy reverberate through the kitchen.

The villagers never quite understood what had Dis so happy, how she could laugh so freely when she had lost both her husband and sons years back to... something or another. But she was generous, and all kinds of odd things might happen to any who spoke ill of her, so soon the matter was left behind. Whatever it was that brought her joy now, the price for it had been paid a long time ago.


End file.
